Iris

Suppose I write the word iris on a piece of paper in the middle of May

Just that one word.

I tuck it into an envelope

Then I walk the letter down the hill.

And when you open it, maybe weeks from now, standing under the hard white light of some ordinary Tuesday, you will understand immediately that it wasn’t about the flower.

I was writing about the way we survived each other

About those majestic purple irises blooming near the fence line, extravagant as queens in leaf debris

How they opened overnight without asking permission from the world.

I was writing about your body beside mine in the quiet mornings.

The warmth of your shoulder. Your thigh. 

Your hair still carrying the scent of sleep.

Coffee between us while neither one of us spoke because the silence itself had become trustworthy.

That’s rare now.

Most people are exhausted in a way sleep doesn’t fix.

Too much noise.

Too much performance.

Everybody branding themselves like cattle beneath glowing screens while the soul sits somewhere off to the side waiting patiently to be noticed again.

But with you, I remember moments that escaped all that.

Standing on the porch at dusk watching hummingbirds dive bomb and squeal

The air thick with coming rain and lily of the valley growing whether the world deserved them or not

And those irises.

How they held color the way certain people hold grief — fully, openly, without apology.

So if someday you receive a letter from me containing only that single word, know this:

Iris.

Meaning:

I remember the softness we made together in a brutal world.

Meaning:

Even now, some part of me is still standing on that porch beside you while summer gathers itself around our ankles.

Meaning:

I loved you in the quiet way perennial things love the earth — returning each season without needing to be asked.